London's best ferment-forward restaurants and cafés

Love fermented food, but not sure where to get your fix? Don't get in a pickle, head to one of these London joints and get your chops around all kinds of wonderful off-the-wall ferments like cocoa bean miso and pickled jicama – also known as Mexican turnip

Published: Wednesday 11th October 2017

Counter Culture actually started life as a deli linked to The Dairy, where cheffing duo Robin and Sarah Gill made all their own preserves and cured their own meat and fish. That project ended, but the team has put their knowledge – and equipment – to good use by turning it into Counter Culture, where they serve flavour-packed small plates featuring off-the-wall ferments like cocoa bean miso.

Prepare yourselves: there's a whole new kind of bao for you to get addicted to, this time hailing from China rather than Taiwan. These steamed buns are closed rather than open, and are traditionally served with pickles. And that's why Bun House has a whole menu of the things. For £2 you can scoff anything from a pickled fruit salad to pickled jicama – also known as Mexican turnip.

Sweet, salty, tangy and crunchy: pickles are bloody delicious, so it's no surprise to see them cropping up more and more frequently on our menus. And they're good for you – winner. Rawduck, the second venture from Tom Hill, Clare Lattin and Rory McCoy of hit restaurant Ducksoup, has a focus on, er, raw foods, and you'll find nibbles like sourdough with unpasteurised butter alongside daily ferments and pickles, as well as natural wines and drinking vinegars. This is the place to go for palate-bending, seasonal housemade 'krauts, kimchis, kombuchas and kefirs (we'll leave you to work out what those are), so you can expect to treat your tastebuds to everything from pickled tomatoes to fermented nettles. The team are due to set up another wine bar this autumn, too, called Little Duck The Picklery, where you'll be able to both buy the picklers and ferments and learn how to do it yourself in its very own fermentation kitchen. Obviously.

Someone once said 'where there's Nordic-style cooking, there'll be pickles'. OK, no they didn't, but pickles and ferments do feature strongly in the region's cuisine – and one of the best places to try them is Rök Smokehouse, which melds top British ingredients with Nordic techniques. You'll find all manner of fermented things on the menu here, from fennel to Swedish anchovies.

Pickling isn't just reserved for the hipster East London set, y'know – it's found its way to Crystal Palace, too, with new opening Salt + Pickle, from local duo Manish Utton-Mishra and Ian Haigh. It serves everything from New York-style salt beef sandwiches (with pickles, obvs) at lunchtime to dainty small plates of pickled mushroom bruschetta and gin-cured salmon come evening.